Gareth: There’s no doom and gloom

Blues boss Gareth Ainsworth said his side are excited to take on Shrewsbury Town on Saturday and put behind them the disappointment of Tuesday night’s defeat to Accrington Stanley.

The Chairboys went into the midweek fixture full of confidence after an outstanding showing in the 1-1 draw with Sunderland three days earlier, but delivered a below-par performance – hindered by the absence of several key players through injury and suspension – to go down to a 3-1 loss.

“Tuesday was big comedown,” Ainsworth admitted. “It happens in football. We were magnificent against Sunderland, and how we didn’t win the game was unfortunate, but it was always going to be hard to lift the boys on Tuesday with a much smaller crowd and a few changes to the team.

“We were too one-dimensional, which we don’t want to be, and conceded some poor goals. But the boys are in a good place; they’re still upbeat, and we’ve got the experienced boys such as Ads, Blooms, Bayo and JJ who can help lift the place and all they want is to get to the next game and put three points on the board.

“People might be thinking it’s all doom and gloom here, but we’re super positive for Saturday. We know we’ve hit a rocky patch and we want to snap out of it. We’ll train well and make the trip and look to win the game ahead of a two-week break from matches. We mustn’t lose it, because we’re on a bad run, but ideally we want to start a winning run,” he added.

And he confirmed that Dominic Gape and Anthony Stewart should be fit to return to the side after their midweek absence, while Matt Bloomfield and Luke Bolton look to shaken off the knocks they collected in the past week.

“Dom took a whack against Sunderland but he’ll be back for Saturday; we missed him on Tuesday because he’s a very intelligent player on and off the ball in the midfield. Anthony had his best game for a while against Sunderland but picked up a knock, and it’s hard for us to keep up match fitness when we haven’t got a reserve team.

“Matt Bloomfield – what a performance he put in on Saturday, and again on Tuesday, and I think we lost the midfield when he came off. All three should be back for Saturday which would be huge for the squad, and also Luke Bolton came through his test on his hamstring, so we’ve got a good squad going into the game and hopefully the fans have got all the optimism they need to make the trip and get behind us.”